Improbable Letters 2.0

September 19, 2016

I miss you. It's liberating to write that -- that I miss you. I felt sick with shame for loving you before, but I don't anymore. I have come to terms -- with myself, and my place in the world. Before, I was growing up and unsure of myself, while you stood your ground in the self you inhabited. But now that I'm older, some of your ambiguities condense into crystals. If you didn't care for me, (as my overpowering impression was over the past few years), you would not have reciprocated in the way that you did, that day in your space, or that other day, in your domain; you would not have smiled at me the way you did, or been cross with me the way you were with others.

I love you, still, in a hopeful, dreamy, way, a head-over-heels way.

I know you avoid me because I make you uncomfortable with the self you've settled into. I know you avoid me because I avoided myself the way you avoid yourself. And I don't think I want to do that anymore. Your dismissal of me was also dismissal of your old self: one that I unearthed; one that cried out from depths of your waters, 'I am drowning'. I shone into you for a split second like the light of the lighthouse hitting Mrs. Ramsay, when she is but a wedge-shaped core of darkness, illuminating her in sympathy; you turned away from me.

I thought you didn't want me in your life, but I don't understand why. You never gave me a reason. If you truly are not the self that I saw, the one you accidentally revealed to me (confirming it), give me a good enough reason -- that is, one you believe -- and I will walk away. You've hidden behind the scary reputation I once crossed. Once crossed, I did fall off the end of the earth; but I liked it, falling in love with you.